


sweet silver bells all seem to say, "throw cares away"

by weatheredlaw



Category: Hawkeye (Comics)
Genre: Christmas, Consent, Developing Relationship, F/M, Holidays, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 09:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/608259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The entire time, Clint grins at Kate from his spot by her elbow like an idiot, watching her flush with bizarre happiness at her team's poor communication skills and complete lack of cohesiveness.</p><p>If she had to admit anything at all, she'd tell him it's the first time they've all been this happy together in ages.</p><p>And if his hand on her knee is any indication, she thinks he understands anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sweet silver bells all seem to say, "throw cares away"

**Author's Note:**

> happy holidays and such! i thought it'd be fun to write some christmas eve fic on the fly. this is totally separate from my series, not related, etc.. enjoy!

"Whoa," Clint says for the eighteenth time in twenty minutes. "Like. _Whoa._ "

"Hey, could you help me for ten seconds? I need you to make sure the water doesn't boil over."

"I could live in this closet. I _have_ lived in a place the size of this closet. _Katie._ This place is amazing. Why don't we do anything here ever?"

"You know why."

"This should be the official Hawkeye base of operations. Like. Officially official."

"This is the officially official base of operations for the Young Avengers already, doofus. Now get over here and watch this pot."

Clint grumbles, but makes his way back into the kitchen anyway, peeking into the oven. Kate tosses a dishtowel at his face. "Hey!"

"If you _even think_ about opening that oven door I will beat you senseless with a rolling pin. That I will find. Because there is probably one in here." Clint grins and leans against the counter, fiddling with the handle of the pot on the stove. "What are you even making anyway?"

"Buckeyes."

"What the hell is a buckeye?"

"Girly. A buckeye is a thing of wonder. It's a little chocolate covered ball of heaven. It's like eating magic." Kate raises an eyebrow. "It's those balls of peanut butter I made last night and stashed in your freezer this morning dipped in chocolate," he deadpans. "Honestly. How can you not know what a buckeye is?"

"You eat the weirdest shit."

" _Hey._ " Clint stands up straight. "Spaghetti and chili is not _weird_ , Katie-Kate. It's _delicious._ Excuse you for not wanting to try it."

"Excuse _you_ for being disgusting."

"Pssh." He waves her off, setting a bowl over the pot of water about to boil and dumping four heaping cups of chocolate chips into it. "Pssh. No imagination. No sense of adventure. What kind of Hawkeye are you?" He grumbles and stirs the chocolate, scowling when it clumps to the spoon and spitefully turning up the heat. Kate swears if she didn't watch him, he'd burn down the city block. 

Billy and Teddy come in around noon, their arms spilling over with gifts and a crock pot hoisted under Teddy's arm. Clint takes it from him gleefully and they plug it in, poking around at whatever's in it with a spoon until Billy starts shrieking at them to stay away, saying words like "family recipe" and "queso dip" with more seriousness than Kate can handle. She lets him work on beating Clint and Teddy away from his crock pot and lets Tommy in. 

"Hey, sweet cheeks. Miss me?"

"Like an arrow in my kidney."

He grins. "I brought booze."

Kate sighs. "And I brought an adult." 

Clint pokes his head around the corner and narrows his eyes. "I need to inform you all that, as an Avenger, I cannot condone underage consumption of alcohol."

"Well, after dinner I guess we can just do a dramatic reading of your criminal record," Kate says brightly. "How's that sound?"

Clint's frown deepens, mostly because she knows she has said copy. "I'll get wine glasses."

"Top shelf next to the fridge." 

 

 

 

Clint takes it upon himself after he's taught Teddy how to coat the buckeyes to take care of the turkey. Or turducken. Or whatever Kate bought. "It's a bird," she had insisted that morning as Clint had stuck a brave hand into its belly and pulled out the gizzards. "I think."

Now he has the livers blended up and cooking on the stove, watching the oven with the eye of a sniper, throwing out a hand to shove Tommy away any time he zips too close. They settle on hovering around one another, with Tommy asking prying, nosy questions about the circus and why purple and if Clint has advice on being taken seriously.

"Not really. I haven't been taken seriously by anyone in, like, forever. Including myself. Taste this." He hands Tommy a spoon of gravy. "I don't know, man. I mean, I could give you some advice on, you know, life, but it's all weirdly specific."

"Like what?"

"Like don't get married after knowing someone for a week."

"Wait, you were married?"

"I don't wanna talk about it," Clint says quietly. "And don't touch Billy's queso, bud. He'll bewitch your balls off or something."

 

 

 

Teddy announces, "I'm not eating this," loudly, for the fourth time, poking the can-shaped, rubbery helping of cranberry sauce with its serving spoon. "Like, sauce doesn't have a shape."

"You slice it, Green Bean," Clint says bitterly. "Honestly."

Kate wipes her mouth on a napkin. "Your midwest is showing, Hawkeye."

"Your Blaire Waldorf is showing, Hawkeye."

"Whoa, let's not get vicious," Tommy says, holding up his hands. "I'll try some of your weird-o sauce, Barton. Slice me up."

"Good man, Shepard." Clint grins and cuts him a chunk, watching as he pokes it with a fork. "You _eat it_. You don't play with it. That was valuable stuff 'round my house when I was growin' up. My mom used to cut it into shapes." He smiles around his fork and cuts another slice. The table gets a little quiet until Tommy starts babbling about a new comm system he's come up with that won't desintigrate or melt because Billy "sucks at magic." Naturally, this starts a fight, and it only ends when Teddy lobs a piece of Clint's cranberry "sauce" right at Tommy's forehead and he concedes the scuffle. 

The entire time, Clint grins at Kate from his spot by her elbow like an idiot, watching her flush with bizarre happiness at her team's poor communication skills and complete lack of cohesiveness.

If she had to admit anything at all, she'd tell him it's the first time they've all been this happy together in ages.

And if his hand on her knee is any indication, she thinks he understands anyway.

 

 

 

Dessert was something Kate had, for some reason, left entirely up to Clint. And she realizes with a jolt that most of the evening's food's been made by him, too, as she watches Billy and Tommy bicker over which asinine special they're going to watch before everyone leaves. Clint comes in from the balcony with two bowels full of fresh snow.

"Okay." Teddy looks up. "I'll bite. What're you doing now?"

"Makin' dessert."

Tommy raises an eyebrow. "That's snow."

"Yeah, thanks genius. There's cream and sugar in the kitchen. Get in there and I'll show you." The boys follow him in, Kate trailing behind him as they surround him in the kitchen. "See? You just put it in a bowel, add in the mixin's. And voila, or whatever. Instant ice cream."

Teddy takes a bowl from him and swallows, face lighting up at the taste. "S'good. Like, really good."

"'Course it is," Clint says. "It's simple. Simple is always good. Katie-Kate?" He passes her a bowl.

"Yeah, _Katie-Kate_ ," Tommy says quietly, at her elbow in a flash, his own bowl in his hands. 

"Shut up." He shrugs and zips into the living room, picking the special on his own amidst Billy's squabbling. Teddy sighs and goes into the living room to break it up. Kate perches on the counter next to Clint, slurping her snow. "Another family recipe?"

"Sort of. Circus stuff."

"Yeah." Kate drags her spoon through what's melted. "Thanks for this."

"This is easy, Katie. Just snow."

"No, I mean...this. Like, today. You didn't have to."

"Sure I did." Clint gives her hand a squeeze. "I owe you, Katie. A lot."

 

 

 

When she's finally sent the boys home and finally convinced Clint to stop cleaning up -- because she can do that, for Christ's sake -- Kate looks at the clock and realizes she's got the Christmas Eve jitters. "Let's go for a walk," she says. Not her best idea, but there's too much energy here. Clint always makes her feel that way, like she's got live wires under her skin.

"It's colder than a well-digger's ass outside. You wanna go walking?"

"Sure." She grabs her coat off its hook and throws him his hat. "You gonna go with me?"

"Yeah, alright Hawkeye." He grins and pulls on the hat, grabbing his coat as she heads out. "Figured you'd be getting ready to pass out in that big comfy bed of yours."

"Were you in my room?"

He looks sheepish. "Couldn't resist. Shall we?" He crooks his elbow and Kate takes it, stepping into the elevator. He looks like a dork, Santa had over his head, coat with its patches that don't match. All that money, hidden away where she can't ask about it, and he still dresses like a circus act. "Damn you got a doorman," he mutters when the elevator opens again and they start making their way across the lobby. "Impressive, Bishop."

She rolls her eyes and nods as they head outside. The wind hits her in the face the second they're out and she wonders if it was a bad idea. Clint glaces over at her. "Second thoughts?"

"Not a one," she snipes back and leads him down the walk. He's in her part of town, not that he doesn't know it. Clint could walk the city blind. _Has_ walked it blind, if any of the stories are true. But he lets her lead on anyway, asking questions like he doesn't know the place, letting her buy him a coffee from a hole in the wall near the park and settling on a bench. "Think it'll snow?"

"Lord willin' and if the creeks don't rise," he says quietly, fingers on her shoulder, thumb drawing circles on her coat. "Weatherman says it will. I s'pose it will." He sips his coffee. "You get everything you wanted this year?"

"Huh?"

"For Christmas. You rake in some cool shit or whatever."

"Apparently my apartment was a present from my dad. But it was my sister's before she got married. Still, pretty boss I guess."

"You guess?"

She nudges him with her elbow. "Shut up."

"Spoiled," he mutters, but he smiles around the lid of his cup. Kate catches his tongue darting out and feels her face flush without much warning. Sometimes he does that to her. Sometimes she does that to herself. She bites back a groan, but figures she must look constipated or like she's dying, because Clint gives her a worried look. "You okay?"

"No, but it's fine."

"Aw, c'mon, Katie. Spill it."

"I don't think I want to," she says quietly. "Like, I don't think you want to hear it."

"Sure I do. I always do."

"Probably not this."

Cling pointedly sets his coffee on the ground and turns his entire body toward her. "Try me."

Kate mimics him. She reaches forward and pulls off his hat. It starts to snow.

"I have feelings for you that I shouldn't."

Clint frowns. "Oh."

"And at the risk of sounding like a cliché, what I want for Christmas is you. For like, two minutes."

"Ew."

"Clint."

"I'm sorry. I'm kidding. I mean I am sorry, but--"

"It's stupid and you should just forget I said anything."

"No, I'm not gonna do that." He reaches forward and pulls the hat off of her head, too. "See, I guess I oughta be pretty honest with _you_ , Katie-Kate."

Kate swallows.

"I want you, too."

 

 

 

She suggests going back to her apartment as casually as she can, but there's no actual casual way to suggest that. Clint keeps it pretty classy until they're in the elevator and he tugs off his gloves to cup her face in his hands. "Can I kiss you? When we get inside?"

"I'll kill you if you don't. I'll go crazy, if you don't. I swear to God, Barton, if you don't kiss me the second we're inside--"

"I promise."

He promises.

He does.

Kate whines into his mouth, wondering why they left in the first place. There's snow down her shirt and her fingers are fumbling, cold, over the buttons of her coat. Clint seems to be as nimble as ever and gets her pretty close to totally undressed in like two minutes, while most of his clothes remain on. "No fair, Hawkeye."

"Yeah, _I'm working on it_." He shucks off his jeans as she crawls backwards over her bed, letting him kiss a line over her calf and thigh, across her stomach and between the valley of her breasts until he reaches her mouth again, sucking on her bottom lip. Kate shivers. "Cold, Hawkeye?" he asks, fingers brushing over one of her nipples, circling the nub until it hardens. She groans. 

"Stop. Stop, just a minute, I--" She swallows, gasping and trying to get her bearings. "This is moving really fast. I wasn't...I wasn't, like, totally expecting this. Actually."

"Oh." Clint rolls back on his heels, hands resting between her legs. "We can stop. It's okay."

"Yeah, but you--" She looks at his cock. It's sort of difficult not to. 

"You know, I've kind of found that, after dying a couple of times, taking care of stuff like this _really_ isn't all that big 's deal, Katie."

"I want to do this."

"I know, but we don't have to do this _now._ Kate." He falls onto his knees again, reaching out and brushing the hair away from her face. "I want you, but I want you for a lot more than this. I want _you_ , if that makes sense."

"Yes."

"You're my partner, Katie. First and foremost. We stick together. We wait for each other. We keep each other safe. Sex or no sex."

"So...so we don't have to? Tonight?"

"Kate." He kisses her, just barely, lips only just touching. "You never have to do anything you don't want to with me. Ever."

"Okay." She nods, sitting up and turning on the lamp buy her bed. "Okay. Good. That's good. That's...that's really good."

"I'm gonna get dressed now."

"Wait." She grabs his arm. "Not...not completely. I want you to stay here. If you want to."

Clint grins. "I do, yeah."

"Good. That's good." Kate relaxes against the pillows, watching him sift through his clothes for his boxers and shirt and crawl back into bed. She turns out the light again. "Clint?"

"Hmm?"

"Thank you."

She feels him smile against the back of her neck. "Hey. Anything for you."

"Anything?"

He huffs. Affectionately. "Don't push your luck too soon, Hawkeye."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"Ha." Clint threads his fingers through hers. "I think I know you better than that."

"Yeah. Yeah you do."

"Get some sleep, Kate."

"You, too, doofus."


End file.
